AT PENPOINT
The Trump-Zelenskyy meeting nearly three weeks ago refuses to go away, because it has created a sense of uncertainty, and seems merely yet another of US President Donald Trump’s attacks of whimsy. Also, it has become the point at which Europe seems to decide, after so many decades of kowtowing to the USA, that it is time to stand up for the country the USA wants to throw under the bus.
The extent to which not just Europe, but the whole world, is moving into unknown territory, must be gauged from the fact that France has offered to extend its nuclear guarantee to Europe if the USA withdraws its. True, the nuclear guarantee may now be something of a dead letter since the USSR no longer intends to invade Western Europe, beginning its attack by a massive nuclear strike, but it would indicate Europe wanted to diverge from the USA, and would mean that the USA was no longer wanted in Europe.
Europe first wanted the UK to stay out. It had spent the medieval ages trying to take over France, but after the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-17th century, English wishes changed: it no longer had any territorial ambitions, but wanted to maintain what it called the ‘balance of Europe’, which meant that it wished to prevent any country growing so strong that it could dominate Europe. That meant fighting France. At this time, Germany was still fragmented, so there was only one power, France. The last such war against France were the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. There were other wars which saw the rise of Germany, which unified after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871.
The balance of Europe was once again threatened, this time by Germany. Both Germany and France prepared to go to war with each other, and sought allies. England switched over, and now sought an alliance, or rather an understanding, the famous Entente Cordiale, with France. It was to land four divisions in France in case it was invaded. The British actually were defending Belgian neutrality. The German invasion plan of France involved a right hook through Belgium, and the use of its railway lines.
That is how World War I began. But the USA did its best to stay out. But ultimately, in 1917, it entered, and the American Expeditionary Force provided enough reinforcement to convince Germany and Austria that they had lost.
The USA helped break the stalemate in the trenches, but in World War II, it got involved in taking back Europe after it had been conquered by Germany. Its entry into the War was because Germany declared War on it after the Pearl Harbour attack in support of its ally, Japan, which had carried out the attack.
There is a belief that Trump is managing the decline of the USA from superpower status. But it should not be forgotten that even former great powers, like the UK, the Netherlands or France, are by no means negligible. And the USA is much larger than all of them.
After World War II, the USA set up an architecture of international relations, at that time a new world order, in which it was the leading country in the new institutions which were set up, like the UN, the IMF and the World Bank.
At this point, one should mention the role of the USSR. Initially, the USSR stayed out, but was then attacked by Germany. Like the UK, it received vast amounts of US aid, and when US and other allied forces landed in Normandy, Soviet forces started their own offensive, thus catching Germany in a pincer. Indeed, tht two-front situation had occurred in World War I, and it was only when Germany sent Lenin back to Russia that Germany was able to get a ‘peace’ government in Russia, which made a separate peace with it. Indeed, the prospect of all those divisions on the Eastern Front being switched to the Western made the AEF all the more crucial.
NATO was meant to put in place a structure for a wartime alliance against the USSR. The USA was a member, as if it wanted to be in on Europe. The break-up of the USSR left NATO in search of a role, and it provided the forces for the ISAF in Afghanistan. The invasion of Ukraine, as predicted, has led to static warfare, reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I, ironically in the Kursk area, which was the scene of the largest armoured battle of World War II.
Put very simply, Ukraine wants to join NATO, Russia doesn’t want this. Trump is on Putin’s side. There appears a logic to this. Clearly. he wants to put a crack in the burgeoning relationship between Russia and China. He might wish to pull off what Richard Nison did. but he must remember that Nixon grew close to China only after it had already broken with the USSR. Unless there is such a break, he will probably not have much luck.
Such a break cannot be ruled out, because it is not likely that Russia would like to be a hanger-on to China, after itself having been leader of a bloc. The Taiwan issue might prove a sticking-point, as Russia might not want to fight the USA over the issue, but it really depends on whether Russia wants China as a replacement for the USA.
For the first time, a Cabinet member, Elon Musk, the President’s Senior Adviser, has put it out there, tweeting that the USA should leave NATO. Would it take the UK along with it? Musk’s statement seems to have provoked no comment from the Secretaries of State and Defense, or the National Security Adviser, though his responsibility for government efficiency means he cannot be unaware of the huge savings it would mean (there are about 70,000 US military personnel in Europe).
Musk, and thus Trump, seems to be expressing the view that the USA has underwritten European security, which has allowed it to develop in ways it would not have if it had had to pay for its own defence. However, the real question is whether the USA can stay out of Europe at all. Apart from the fact that they are such huge trading partners of one another, the USA is a nation of immigrants, mostly European. Only Native Americans and Black Americans cannot tell which ancestor came over; Trump himself is an example: all four of his grandparents came over from Germany. A more apposite example is that of Ukraine itself. For centuries part of the Russian Empire, exiles and immigrants played a key role in the USA in keeping the flame of Ukrainian nationalism alive
It might be noted that European quarrels seem to be moving eastward. The original division of Europe by the grandsons of Charlemagne, created France and Germany. After the contours of Germany became distinct, there was the Partition of Poland. World War I and II had the Western component of Germany-France and the eastern one of Germany-Russia. Now Russia has invaded Ukraine.
The last time the USA stepped back from Europe was in 1919, when it did not join the League of Nations. It got involved again after World War II. It almost seems as if Trump has been beguiled by eight decades of peace. He might like to remember what George Canning, then British PM said in 1827, “I called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old.” He said that on the occasion of the British decision to help enforce the Monroe Doctrine, that no European power would interfere in the American continent beyond existing colonies. That Doctrine could not have been enforced by the USA, which was not strong enough, Trump does not seem to be making America great again, merely alone.
There is a belief that Trump is managing the decline of the USA from superpower status. But it should not be forgotten that even former great powers, like the UK, the Netherlands or France, are by no means negligible. And the USA is much larger than all of them.
